Neophyte / Adept (54 page)

Massimo raised his glass. “Welcome,” he said, “to
Tungleskins! That’s what we call it, when a beast of unknown origin is on the
loose, a tungleskin. What I want you two to do is find it, and then, if you
please, kill the monster, do you think you can do that for me? In return, I’ll
do
you
a favor.”

He sang the last part.

“I’ll look into whatever you want––but no
promises, Lennox! They’re too easy to make!” said Massimo. “What
do
you want, anyway? I know you didn’t
come here for the company, Lennoxlove.”

“His name’s Selwyn. Halsey will fill you in on the rest?”

“Ah, so that’s your name, is it! And a good one, too. Well,
my dear, tell old Mas.”

It was a moment before I could respond. “The Dioscuri
grabbed him from me, in Rome,” I said. “He can turn into a black
cat––a panther;
and
he’s
Eclectic.”

Massimo rubbed his hands together. I was uncertain how much
I should reveal, but if it meant saving Selwyn’s life... “Good, good, that’s
good,” he said. “But, did you say Dioscuri? All right, all right. A deal’s a
deal. I’ll see what I can do. But I’ll want a pelt. Something I can hang over
the bar, Lennox. It would be nice to have this place filled up again. I have
debts, you know. Not that that matters. Do you remember Barney? Eaten. They
found his mackintosh. Blood all over it. You stop this whatever-it-is, and I’ll
find your friend. Do we have a deal?”

Lennox and Massimo left off with business, and after several
toasts––none of which I drank––the meeting was
concluded.

Maybe it was the aether, but it didn’t seem to hit me, until
just then: We were going into the forest to find this creature––to
kill it, if we could––as soon as possible. I unzipped my bag and
pulled out the Everything book. It was never too late to become Adept.

Chapter 12
– Quintessence

Could it be?
Was
the tungleskin doing these killings the grey wolf? What else could it be? Yet,
I had always imagined the grey wolf as a kind of sangoma. My therian. Somehow
made corporeal.

But then I remembered the snow and thought,
It can’t be
; the grey wolf made no paw
prints... So how it had eaten anybody....

The following night (because Lennox was a vampire, so
naturally the best time of day would be to creep in the woods at night) we left
our hotel room, and made our way to Letná Park. It was past the Hunger Wall,
all the way to Lookout Point, from which we had a stunning view of the Vltava
as it flowed past Prague Castle. It reminded me of Rome, in a way, with the
many bridges crossing the river, and how the Tiber sparkled at night.

An Englishman, passing by, warned us to be careful. “It’s
not safe after dark,” he said.

A small restaurant and café were closing. Tourists were
heading down the stone steps, abandoning Letná Park, which led to the
embankment below. We were soon alone.

I had flipped through the Everything book back at the hotel
room, learning some quick spells. The Grigori section was full of hard-R words.
Words like
noranveror
and
smáskitligr
. Lennox had watched me
studying, lost in thought. It wasn’t until I hit upon an especially potent
spell called a
feiknstafir
, that
Lennox said, “I’m Marked too, you know. My scars.”

He was focusing on my orchid as he said so; it hadn’t pained
me in a while, my orchid.

His “scars” were a collection of silver bite marks at his
throat and both of his wrists.

“He’s still out there, my Maker. I’ll know it when I find
him,” he said. “We’ll be
connected
.”

I hadn’t realized it before, but Lennox and I were on the
same kind of quest. We were both searching for our parents––and our
pasts. What was it, I wondered, about needing to know where you came from?

I thought of Lennox traveling the world, searching for his
sire. It seemed lonely.
Perhaps
....
Only, I didn’t say so....
Maybe
he
should let it go...?

Would I?
Could
I,
now that I was on the trail of my parents? Was this what they would have wanted
for me, to be in Prague with a vampire?

“You know, at some point the doors stop opening for you,”
said Lennox, “and then you have to start opening them for yourself.”

The problem was, I didn’t know where to begin. I put my hood
up, concentrating hard. Were the non-magicals aware of the thing roaming their
forest?

I thought of Ballard laid up, and Lia and Gaven out of
commission––

Rome needed Lennox––and, okay, me,
too––which was another reason for scolding myself for neglecting my
studies.

But there was something else, at work: It just seemed right
that a vampire, witch and werewolf should get along... It sent a message....
That we were strong, united... whatever... that Lennox, Ballard and I could
lead
the way.

Without meaning to, I put my arm through his, when something
ahead of us
snapped
.

I was still so full of the aether, it made my pulse pound.
Who was out there? I hadn’t forgotten the Dark Order. Perhaps this tungleskin
was one of them.

I could feel Lennox tense beside me. I shot the Light ahead
of me, whereupon it flew into the trees like a meteor. “Ow!” said a familiar
voice. “Halsey? What did you do that for?” said Manon, stumbling out of the
trees.

She stepped from behind a spruce tree, clutching at her
head, dressed in a traveling cloak, her midnight-black tresses tumbling down
her backside. “And
why
are you with a
vampire
?” she asked me,
incredulously.

I made the introductions:

“Lennox, Manon, Manon, Lennox.
She’s a witch,”
I said to Lennox.

“I’m only Fledged. The Magister Equitum sent me to find you.
It’s not safe to be in Prague at
THIS
TIME. Remembr,”
she said. She formed her Wiccan W and shot it at me; I
flinched, involuntarily. What was it with people thinking they could just do
magic on me, whenever they felt like it?

“The Dark Order is mobilizing,” said Manon. “They’ll get
you, if they can. The moon is in the Fourth House.”

“So?”

“So,” said Manon. The spell had taken over and I suddenly
found myself
in her dreams
––in
her memories...

I didn’t know where I was. Marsh, bog, or fen. There was a
house, a manor, in the distance. I came to the edge of it, and there, in the
background, I saw them.

“I’m not an Eclectic,” said Manon. “I
used
to belong––to have a House––until
they
came.
This
is what happened to
my
Family. And why I joined the benandanti.”

I didn’t know what I expected. The Lenoir?

But these weren’t vampires. They weren’t even humans. They
were Grigori. How long ago had it been since her Family had been attacked?

“They came and destroyed my House, and I-I’ve wandered ever
since,” said Manon.

It was ringed in fire, the House. Wizards and witches
appeared, coughing, from the smoke, brandishing their marks, and were struck
down by the Grigori, who tore at their flesh. This rage was filling inside of
me. Not for myself, but for Manon. “I was number twelve,” she said, “until they
were destroyed. I came home, and then I hid––I was too scared to
fight...”

I watched as the Grigori blocked the wizards’ spells. They
looked like Rayven, only worse; huge and intimidating with massive
claws––their upper torsos malformed and twisted, packed with
muscles. Their skulls wolfish, to fit all their teeth.

Had
my parents
misbehaved? Was that why they were destroyed? Had these
things
been sent to kill
them
?
Somehow I needed to learn everything I could about the Dark Order and the
Master House; but that would mean Prague, and the Grigori––

She cut off the image playing in my
head––yanking it from me––the way Manon’s whole life
had been taken from her.

“The Grigori were wiped out, slaughtered, but they’re back
now,” she said. “They’re back. And nobody cares, Halsey. My House was
destroyed, and no investigation was ever begun––I think the Master
House covered it up. The Grigori were never good about thinking for themselves.
Cruel and inhuman, almost their only pleasure derives from killing. It would
have taken somebody to unite them. Somebody
sent
them to my House. Someone powerful.”

Lenoir... It had to have been... Only, why? What did he
want? They didn’t just attack of their own accord, did they?

Lennox cut in. “It wasn’t us, I can assure you of that. The
Grigori and Our House split after the First War. We’re leaving this fray. Paris
is withdrawing.”

“Then who is it?” said Manon, a questioning in her eyes that
would never go away.

In Manon’s memory, the Grigori had fought
well––blocking spells, sending their own in retaliation. They had a
visceral claw-and-tooth approach. They also fought in numbers.

I perused House Rookmaaker in my mind. Where was it, and how
did I get there? There were no obvious signposts. Willow trees? Where were
those? I felt directionless, delirious, and deciduous.

The Grigori and someone else had taken over and were
destroying Houses. I thought of the story I had heard about the Dark Lord.
Perhaps
Lenoir’s
idea of redefining
magic was making everyone an Eclectic. Destroying authority? It sounded like
something
I
would do.

If so, maybe only the Big Three were immune (Houses Harcort,
Coven, and Ravenseal) and, okay, the Master House, itself. Should I have gone
to Ravenseal? It would be safer, I thought.

No; I made the right call. I was sure of it. Yet, a prickle
of fear shot through me, causing my orchid to writhe up my arm. What if they
came looking for me? What if the Grigori and whoever else came back to finish
off my House and get me?

I
knew
Rayven was
back––He was a Watchtower, after all––
perhaps... ––no... They’re gone;
and nothing you do can bring them back...

My parents were dead. I needed to take my own advice.
Let go, Halsey girl
, I said to myself,
repeating Mistress Genevieve’s words.

That left the Dark Order––those evil witches and
wizards and otherkin kind who had been responsible for the First
War–– Who were they? And were they the ones trying to stop me from
forming House Rookmaaker?

It was cold and wet; the sky opened up and began to pour.
Manon fell in step beside me. Lennox and I briefed her on the thing which had
been killing in the forest “...so obviously it’s one of us,” she said, “a
magical... spirit... or something or other...

“We should split up––no,
listen––Halsey and I over here––and, Lennox, you that
way; we’ll go twice as fast–– I’ll watch out for her, I promise,”
she said.

So Lennox headed down the left fork, and Manon and I the
other. Pretty soon it was pitch-black. Not even the stars peeked overhead. I
decided to use one of the spells, I’d learned, which would enable me to see in
the dark. It was an interesting effect. Everything went night-vision green
(“Wow, you have dog’s eyes,” said Manon, “the way they look in the dark”); now
the forest stretched before me; I could see depth and detail. I motioned to a
fork in the path up ahead. Manon put her fingertips to her forehead like she
had a migraine. Suddenly her aether surged.

Her eyes looked the way Rayven’s had done, filled with
energy. “You want to split up?” she said, mischievously, with Lennox out of
earshot.

“I don’t know,” I hedged, stepping on one toe, then the
other.

“If anything happens, just scream, I’ll come find you.
Swearsies.”

So that’s what we did. It was like the three of us were
spreading out, circling. Like we were a coordinated pack. Still, what would it
be like to fly? To skim the treetops, staring down?
At least you’re Crafting
, I told myself.

I played a little game with myself, there in the trees,
imagining I was breaking through the willow trees, about to find my House. I
should’ve just asked Manon why someone would want her coven destroyed? What
were they up to that the Grigori had been sent?

You’re either IN or
you’re OUT, I suppose... A part or apart...
Still, it was the first time I
had ever heard anyone use the term Family, when speaking of a House––like
they were tight-knit. No hierarchy in her group, I thought. I knew when Manon
said she was a twelfth, she meant it the way a child does who’s the youngest in
a house. She had escaped. They had protected her. They hadn’t given her up.
Neither had my parents.

Maybe, whoever this tungleskin was, it had just run away.
Poof. Gone. The way Manon had escaped when the Grigori had come looking for her
House.

Here was a problem. A fundamental curse. If I wanted to
know, at what price would I begin to learn the things I needed to find out?

Ballard had helped me, and look what happened to him. He’d
nearly been killed. Maybe splitting up was a good idea, or breaking up. Maybe,
I dunno, I had to do this on my own, instead of leading other people astray.
But that would mean starting over. Could I forget my past to find the future?

My orchid twisted alive. What did it mean? Was it a
feiknstafir? A Dark curse latched onto me?

If what I thought was coming
was
, would I be able to handle it, or would the ones I cared about
be drawn in? That was a dilemma for which there was no easy cure. I got down
onto my hands and knees and crawled through the underbrush. The night vision
made everything surreal. At any moment, I expected to stumble upon Rayven, so
used was I to overhearing things I should not. Perhaps I’d talk to Manon about
reinstating her House. She was Fledged, after all? That meant she could lead
her own House.

“Blindr,” I whispered.

I turned off the night-vision spell. Suddenly, the woods
came alive. I thought I heard something move ahead.

“STOP IT,”
I
hissed, slapping my orchid.

I could hear small animals scurrying for their meals. Of the
two senses, sight or sound, I found hearing immeasurably superior, but there
was also a sixth,
magic
, sense,
tingling in my fingertips. Why did I suddenly have déjà vu? Perhaps it was
because of what I had heard back at my birthday, in December, when Lennox
hadn’t shown, and I had envisioned Rayven for the first time. He had kneeled
down and a hissing voice had rasped:

“The war is
starting... Battle lines will be drawn... She and the vampire are headed
towards Prague...”

Well, the war
was
starting; I could feel it. Lines
were
being drawn––alliances forged––Houses hunted down and
destroyed––others renewed. She and the vampire
were
in Prague...
ME! I was
her.
Something fell into the pit of my stomach.
Find the other one and kill him––

* * *

Ballard!
I heard
screaming. Lennox came crashing through. “Halsey, where’s Manon?”

I opened my mouth to scream, but no words came out.

“B-B-Ballard,” I whispered, trembling.